Annual Archives

Lunch for students with Steve: Thurs. Oct 9 12:15-1:15, North Dining Room, Moulton Union
Talk: Thursday, Oct 9, 4:00 PM, Druckenmiller Hall, Room 20
One of the most vexing problems in ecology is how distinctly different communities, such as mussel beds and seaweed stands that occur on rocky shores in Maine, can occur in the same ecosystem …

Jon Witman is professor of Biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. Having spent a lifetime studying and researching marine ecology around the world – and more specifically in six out of the planet’s seven oceans – Professor Witman is passionate about developing and promoting marine conservation science.
He received a B.A, M.S and Ph.D …

Securitization of Water, Climate Change, and Migration Linkages in Israel, Jordan, and Syria.
On April 16th, Erika Weinthal, Associate Professor of Environmental Policy and Associate Dean for International Programs at Duke University, Nicholas School of the Environment, lectured to Bowdoin students and faculty on the development of international discourse related to the securitization of water and its linkages to climate change and migration in Israel, Jordan, and Syria. Given years of protracted drought in the Middle East, Dr …

The Environmental Studies Department and the BOC will be hosting a joint end-of-year cookout on Thursday, May 8th at the BOC's Schwartz Outdoor Leadership Center. Come and enjoy a chance to connect with ES students and faculty …

Monday, March 31st at 7:30 pm in Smith Auditorium, Sills Hall
From the ashes of the LA riots arose a lush, 14-acre community garden, the largest of its kind in the United States. Now bulldozers threaten its future …

April 16, 2014, 7:30 p.m. in Searles Science Building, Room 315.
Protracted droughts and scarce water resources combined with internal and cross-border migration have contributed to the securitization of discourses around migration and water in much of the Middle East …

The Green Careers Series is a fun, casual way to learn about green careers and chat with folks who are working in the field. After a moderated discussion with panelists, there will be ample opportunity for Q&A and conversation …

Tuesday, March 25th at 7:30 pm in Kresge Auditorium
Susan Hockfield, the 16th president of MIT and a professor of Neuroscience, will give the Kates Lecture, titled, "The 21st Century's Technology Story: Biology, Physics, and Engineering Converge." In response to her leadership as a president, in 2006 MIT launched the MIT Energy Initiative, known as MITEI ("mighty"), a $359 million effort to accelerate research, policy, and education to achieve a clean energy future. In recognition of MITEI's momentum, in October 2009 US President Barack Obama became the first American president to speak at MIT and visit its research laboratories.
The first life scientist to lead MIT, she championed the breakthroughs emerging from the historic convergence of the life sciences with the engineering and physical sciences, in fields from clean energy to cancer, including the founding of MIT’s David H …

12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Location: Adams Hall, Room 111 (Common Room)
Event Type: Lecture Sponsor: Environmental Studies
Contact: Rosemary Armstrong
-Open to the Bowdoin Community-
Are you interested in learning more about a career in the alternative energy field - from wind power to solar and hydro? Join three Bowdoin alums for pizza and a discussion of their work in the alternative energy field. They will also talk about how they got into the field, and give advice to students …

Although sabbaticals are thought by many students to allow professors a break from the rigors of teaching a full class load, the reality is often quite different. Associate Professor Matthew Klingle (History and Environmental Studies), who teaches interdisciplinary courses in both departments, used his sabbatical during the 2011-12 and 2012-2013 academic years as “an opportunity to begin tentative new directions in [his] scholarship and teaching.”
Thanks to a New Directions Fellowship from the Andrew W …

An interdisciplinary panel to consider both the local and global impacts of sea level rise. Government Professor Allen Springer, geologist Peter Slovinsky of Catalysis Adaptation Partners, and EOS major Cam Adams, '14, will present, highlighting the ways that different governments deal with the issues presented by sea level rise, and what steps are being taken in the Northeast and in Midcoast Maine to combat this problem.
Professor Allen Springer teaches courses at Bowdoin in the fields of international law and organization, introductory and advanced international relations, North Atlantic relations, environmental policy and American foreign policy …

Many companies around the world are participating in voluntary programs that require them to do good things for the environment, even beyond the requirements of government regulations. Some environmentalists worry that these programs are yet more corporate propaganda attempting to greenwash companies’ poor environmental records. Supporters see in these programs great potential to improve environmental conditions in an era when gridlock prevents government led solutions. In this talk I will propose an analytic lens that focuses on what problems these programs can solve and what types of rules they need to be effective. Voluntary programs can induce companies to reduce their pollution emissions if they offer a mechanism that credibly signals their superior environmental behavior.
Matthew Potoski is a Professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara …

Bowdoin Professor of Mathematics Mary Lou Zeeman is featured in the June/July issue of MAA Focus, the newsletter of the Mathematical Association of America. The article (also viewable here) highlights an environment-themed lecture titled “Harnessing Math to Understand Tipping Points,” which Zeeman gave as part of the MAA Distinguished Lecture Series.
Zeeman sketched graphs of the earth’s energy balance and other phenomena for the audience, and boiled down concepts such as resilience — an ecosystem’s ability to withstand disturbance — to simple mathematical terms.
By tracking gradual declines in resilience, Zeeman explained, scientists can figure out how to predict abrupt shifts (or tipping points) before they happen …

September 26th, 7-9 pm, Searles 315
Kate Brown is a leading historian of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, specializing in environmental history, the history of science and technology, and spatial history. In her latest book, Plutopia: Nuclear Families in Atomic Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters, she provides the first definitive account of the great plutonium disasters of the United States and the Soviet Union.
Kate Brown lives in Washington, DC and is an Associate Professor of History at UMBC …

Thursday, October 3rd, 7:00, Beam Classroom
Careers in green building are many and varied. Join us to hear from four professionals about their careers in green building. You’ll hear their “career stories” – how they came to be doing what they’re doing, their lessons learned along the way, and about their experiences in green building The Green Careers Series is a fun, casual way to learn about green careers and pick the brains of folks who are working in green careers …

Tuesday, September 17, 2013 7:30 pm
Main Lounge, Moulton Union
Mark Lubell Professor Mark Lubell, Director of the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior at the University of California-Davis, will share lessons learned from more than 15 years conducting economics valuation research to inform public policy decisions. He will speak about social networks as core components of policy processes and individual decision-making …

Story by Abby McBride, June 20, 2013
Photo: Khumbu, India. Photo credit: Ashish Kotari
This spring the Journal Conservation and Society published a special issue on community-based conservation, inspired by a symposium hosted by Bowdoin College a few years back.
The introductory article – “Conservation As If People Mattered: Policy and Practice of Community-based Conservation” – was written by former Mellon Global Scholar Ashish Kothari, Rusack Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Earth and Oceanographic Science Philip Camill, and conservation professional Jessica Brown.
“Rather than trying to conserve natural areas by taking people out of them, we looked at ways of using participation by local groups to actually aid in conservation efforts,” Camill said …

Thursday, May 2 7:30-8:30 (CANCELLED)
RESCHEDULED: Wednesday May 8 , 4:30-5:30
ES Common Room, Adams Hall
An Independent study project by Sarah Johnson and Matt Gamache
Join Sarah and Matt as they present their research on domestic and international marine sanctuaries and their legal and political structures. Their research focuses on Stellwagen Bank, MA and also investigates international attempts to create and monitor marine sanctuaries, comparing the tactics and outcomes of various strategies …

Friday, April 26 12:30-1:30
Room 315, Searles Science Building
Open to the Public
Reception 12:00 pm to 12:30 pm in Searles 314
Aaron Donohoe, as part of the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate at MIT, explores the processes controlling the global mean energy balance of the Earth and the poleward energy transport in the climate system. The global mean planetary albedo is partitioned into a component due to atmospheric reflection (clouds) and a component due to surface reflection …

Shaun Golding is a Visiting Professor in the Sociology and Anthropology Department for the 2012-2013 academic year. This past fall he taught Environmental Sociology and Migration, Work, and Inequality in the Global Economy …

Monday, April 22, 1pm
Shannon Room, Hubbard Hall
Organized by the Arctic Museum
The global launch of a film entitled "Thin Ice: The Inside Story of Climate Science" will take place on Earth Day, Monday, 22 April 2013. The film aims to give people from all walks of the life the chance to see the astonishing range of human activity and as scientific endeavor required to help us understand our changing climate …

Thursday, April 11
4:00pm-5:00pm
Veam Classroom, VAC
Open to the public free of charge.
Hank Lentfer, author of Faith of Cranes, will discuss the challenges of conservation work in our increasingly consumptive culture, and how having an attachment to place and community can give us greater hope for the future. Using images and sounds gathered from a life embedded on Alaska's wild edge, Hank will explore the role of beauty and wonder to inspire the work of conservation.
“Not that I don’t get discouraged by our seemingly endless ability to keep making the same mistakes, but I have learned to balance the despair with increasingly long bouts of celebrations, and wonder, and (when I am most lucky) pure joy …

Wednesday, April 10
7:00pm-8:30
Beam Classroom, VAC
Four years ago Walmart organized The Sustainability Consortium in cooperation with the Environmental Defense Fund, Conservation International and other environmental groups, plus 80 companies including Stonyfield and 7th Generation.
Their goal is to develop an Index to measure the sustainability of all their products, so customers can be certain they are buying green, and companies can measure progress in meeting their environmental and social goals. Bob Kerr of Pure Strategies helps manage the negotiations.
Is this a promising new way to save the planet?
Robert L …

Tuesday, April 23
7:30pm
Kresge Auditorium, VAC
Now playing at more than 300 universities, see the film that’s changing the global energy conversation. Nonpartisan yet revolutionary, Switch unites diverse audiences in a shared understanding of energy.
In Switch, Dr …

Wednesday, April 3
12:00-1:00 PM
Adams Hall, ES Commons Room
Bring a bag lunch and join us for this conference call with Katharine K. Wilkinson, a former staff member at the National Resource Defense Council, and author of- Between God & Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change (Oxford University Press) …

Monday, March 4, 7:00-8:30pm
Moulton Union, Main Lounge
With Maine's vast tracts of corporate and recently-divested forest lands, and with its many struggling timber-dependent communities, our state shares more in common with large Western states than with the rest of New England.
Kathryn DeMaster and Melanie Parker will draw parallels and contrasts between the cultural and economic landscapes of Maine's forested northern rim and the American West, both of which have been shaped by large absentee landowners. In light of Maine's on-going dialogue over development of Plum Creek lands in the Moosehead Lake region, these issues resonate locally.
Kathryn DeMaster's work centers on sustainable agriculture and rural development …

Wednesday, March 6, 4:00-5:00pm
ES Common Room, Adams Hall
Join us for a discussion about the future of fisheries here in the Gulf of Maine, and in the emerging world.
Jerry Knecht '76, is founder and president of North Atlantic Seafood in Portland Maine. North Atlantic Seafood is a member of the Gulf of Maine Sustainable Seafood Initiative's Industry Working Group that is engaged in developing ways to support and market sustainable species from the Gulf of Maine.
Mr …

Friday, March 1, 12-1:30
Lancaster Lounge, Moulton
Join Alice Henly, Coordinator of the National Resources Defense Council's Collegiate Sports Greening Project, to learn how to use the significant cultural and market influence of sports to promote environmental stability at stadiums, among fans, and to the industry's massive supply chain. …

Saturday, March 2 7:00 pm
Kresge Auditorium, Kresge Visual Arts Center
Click Here to Watch The Trailer
In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth's changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change …

February 10, 2013: 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Adams Hall, Room 111 (Common Room)
Open to the Bowdoin Community
The Climate Reality Project was developed by Al Gore in 2006, and has been refined since then, to reflect current issues and challenges. Floods, fires, droughts, storms all over the globe are portrayed, with the resulting human impacts …

12pm-1pm
ES Common Room, Adams
Bring a bag lunch and join us for this conference call with Dan Lashof! We will supply drinks and cookies.
Join us every first and third Wednesday via conference call and listen in real-time to climate professionals discuss the latest science, politics, and economics of climate change. It is possible to listen online after the call and all calls are available as podcasts 24 hours after the event …

Students in Perspectives in Environmental Science study forest plots and collect data on tree growth at Bowdoin’s Coastal Studies Center. These data are used to examine the rate of carbon sequestration occurring on the property using growth as a proxy …

Tuesday, January 29 7:00-8:30pm
Main Lounge, Moulton Union
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about the broad range of summer internships, felolowships and other opportunities that are open to you. Get tips on the application process, and hear from students who had various fellowships last summer. The Environmental Studies Program has three summer Fellowship Programs: Community Matters in Maine Environmental Fellowships, Enviromental Justice and Sustainability Fellowships, and the Cooke Enviornmental Research Fellowship …

Tuesday, Feb 19 7:30 pm
Searles Hall Room 315
Jerry Knecht, Bowdoin class of 1976 is founder and president of North Atlantic Seafood, in Portland, Maine and PT Bali Seafood International in the Lesser Sundra region of Indonesia. Jerry will give a talk about his involvement with the development of sustainable fisheries in Indonesia
Due to the extreme remoteness and lack of infrastructure on Indonesia's islands, the region's fisheries have been protected from major development …

Janisse Ray is writer, naturalist and activist, and the author of four books of literary nonfiction and a collection of nature poetry. In her most recent book The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food, Ray writes about the renaissance of local food, farming, and place-based culinary traditions taking hold across the country and of something small, critically important, and profoundly at risk that is being overlooked in this local food resurgence: seeds …

Congratulations to Walter Wuthmann (2014) who recently won High Country News annual student essay contest! He majors in English and Environmental Studies. Walter grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. He is fueled by what his friends perceive as a disturbing love of books and a massive environmental guilt …

Monday, October 22
7:30 pm - 8:30pm
Quinby House
Are you interested in an environmental career, but uncertain how to go about landing an internship or a job? Join us for this alumni panel to learn about the various career paths that five different graduates from the Class of 2010 pursued on their way to landing a green dream job!
Participants from the Class of 2010
Brooks Winner, Community Energy Associate at the Island Institute
Thai Ha-Ngoc, Program Assistant at The Henry P. …

Wednesday Oct 17, 2012 7:00 PM
Kresge Auditorium
The film follows the family of Jan Goranson and Rob Johanson, their two sons and their crew through the 2009 growing season, as they struggle first against the rainiest June on record, then with a potato blight that threatens to destroy their entire crop.
Co-sponsored by Film Studies and the Environmental Studies Program. …

Michael Kolster "Rapids, Lisbon Falls (grid), 2010"
The Androscoggin River, once devastated by contamination and labeled one of the 10 most polluted rivers in the country, is now partially recovered and in a new phase. The complexities of the river’s legacy and its potential are captured in a cross-disciplinary, collaborative project by Bowdoin professors Matthew Klingle and Michael Kolster.
Klingle, an environmental historian, and Kolster, a photographer, pose important questions about its shifting cultural and economic status in their interactive installation, A River Lost and Found: The Androscoggin in Time and Place, a companion to the Bowdoin College Museum of Art’s William Wegman: Hello Nature, both of which opened July 13.
Also incorporated are oral histories collected on an ongoing basis from members of the Maine community …

Tuesday, May 1 7:30 pm
ES Common Room, Adams Hall
This event is only open to the Bowdoin Community
Come join us for a screening of two videos from the Basel Acton Network, a group that focuses on the signing and implementation of the UN Treaty designed to prevent the international transfer of toxic wastes. Both videos focus on E-Waste and it's exportation from more developed to less developed nations …

This year's event will take place on Saturday, May 5th and Sunday, May 6th on the campus of Bowdoin College, with an optional field trip on Sunday afternoon to the Coastal Studies Center on Orr’s Island. The symposium research talks are open to the public and will feature a distinguished group of invited speakers representing 17 different institutions …

Friday, April 20th, 10am-2pm
Swing by Hyde Plaza and watch as eco reps and Green Bowdoin sort through trash bags in an effort to gauge how well Bowdoin students are recycling and where we can all improve. …

Wednesday, April 11
McKeen Center Common Room, Banister Hall
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Adam Ureneck, a 2004 Bowdoin graduate (Environmental Studies & History), has worked in Peru for over nine years, both as a student and organizer for Solidaridad en Marcha, an international organization dedicated to working with the poorest of the poor. Based in his experience in Lima's shantytowns as well as his development work in Perus High Andes, Adam will specifically address the problem of relying entirely on technical solutions to the many challenges that face a complex cultural and social reality such as the one found in Perus highland region …

Thursday, April 5, 7:00 pm
Smith Auditorium, Sills Hall
Bowdoin College
Chuck Keeney—a local activist, and labor and environmental justice historian from West Virginia—discusses the impacts of mountaintop removal mining, what the people of Appalachia are doing to stop it, and how we can help here in Maine.
Dr. C …

Friday, April 6th, 7pm
Smith Auditorium, Sills Hall
There will be a showing of the film Mother: Caring for 7 Billion, the award winning film about the impact on people and the Earth posed by human's growing population. The film breaks a 40-year taboo by bringing to light an issue that silently fuels our largest environmental, humanitarian and social crises - population growth …

Join the effort—The Tapping Begins Tuesday, March 6th at 11:00 AM behind Quinby House (Next door to Mac House, Main St.)
Bowdoin students will be tapping Bowdoin maple trees, and producing maple syrup. A culminating event will take place in late March- Maple Syrup Sunday, Sunday, March 25 …

Thursday, February 16 7:30 pm
Smith Auditorium, Sills Hall
Bernd Heinrich is the author of numerous award-winning books, including the bestselling Winter World, Mind of the Raven, and Why We Run, and has received countless honors for his scientific work. He also writes for Scientific American, Outside, American Scientist, and Audubon; and he has written book reviews and op-eds for The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
He studied at the University of Maine and UCLA, and is professor emeritus of biology at the University of Vermont …

David Hart will give the Biology Department Seminar Thursday, December 1,2011 at 4:00 pm in Druckenmiller Hall, Room 20, preceded by a reception in Druck 20 at 3:30 pm.
David Hart, is Research Leader of Sustainability Solutions Initiative, and Director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Center …

Naomi Oreskes - "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" Tuesday, November 15 at 7:30 PM in Kresge Auditorium, VAC -- Open to the public

Naomi Oreskes is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego, Adjunct Professor of Geosciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and an internationally renowned historian of science and author.

John Duff, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director, Environmental, Earth & Ocean Sciences Department, University of Massachusetts/Boston
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 12:00-1:00
Hutchinson Room, THorne Hall
John Duff will be visiting Damon Gannon's Marine Conservation Biology class and will be meeting with interested faculty, staff and students over lunch in the Hitchinson room, Thorne Hall. Please get your lunch 'through the line' and join the conversation.
John Duff received his J.D …

“Maine Rivers, Estuaries and Coastal Fisheries” is a collaborative project which brings together scientists and students from Bowdoin College, Bates College, the University of Southern Maine, the Penobscot East Resource Center, the University of Maine and stakeholders throughout the two watersheds. Members of our research team have long and significant experience working on environmental issues related to Maine’s rivers and coastal waterways.
Our research seeks to understand the ecological and socioeconomic influences on recovery of our rivers, estuaries, and coastal marine environments …

Monday, October 24 7:30 pm
Kresge Auditorium, VAC
Elliott Sober is the Hans Reichenbach Professor and William Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University fo Wisconsin. The two big ideas in Darwin’s theory of evolution are common ancestry and natural selection …

From Downtown to Downeast: Fostering Community Voices for Fair and Affordable Housing
Featuring: Ben Beach ’97, Elise Selinger ‘10 and Ian Yaffe ‘09
Moderator, Professor Craig McEwen, Sociology
Monday, October 17, 4:00 pm
Lancaster Lounge, Moulton Union
Using the example of a low-income Latino immigrant neighborhood in Los Angeles where he worked for nearly a decade, Ben Beach ’97, attorney and Director of the Community Benefits Law Center, illuminates the power of campaigns for “community benefits,” including efforts to win standards that create affordable housing as a part of local economic development. Elise Selinger ’10, Associate at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) in New York City, illustrates how this organization preserves affordable housing and promotes self-sufficiency through a system in which low-income residents collectively own and democratically govern limited-equity housing cooperatives …

Phil Camill, Bowdoin's Rusack Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Earth and Oceanographic Science, recently was awarded a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation for a new Arctic soil-carbon project.
"Collaborative Research: RUI: Sensitivity of Circum-Arctic Peatland Carbon to Holocene Warm Climates and Climate Seasonality," will involve a pan-Arctic collection and synthesis of peat core carbon accumulation records in Alaska, Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Labrador, Scandinavia, Western and Eastern Siberia and Kamchatka.
"The idea," explained Camill, "is that we can examine known past warm events and see how wetlands in the Arctic stored carbon during those times. …

Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Visual Arts Center, Beam Classroom
Please join us for a talk by Lucinda Cole, professor at the University of Southern Maine, working at the forefront of the study of animals, the environment, and literature in the early modern period. …

Free and open to the public. Due to the high demand for this event tickets are required. A limited number of tickets will be available beginning at 7:00 pm 'at the door' on April 11. Additional seating will be available in Beam Classroom where the talk will be projected. Audience members in Beam will be invited into Kresge Auditorium for the Q&A at the end of the talk.

Canadian Inuit activist, Sheila Watt-Cloutier is the Tallman Scholar at Bowdoin College for 2010-2011. She works on a range of social and environmental issues affecting Inuit, focusing on climate change and persistent organic pollutants in the Arctic.

Dale Jamieson is a leading expert on the ethics of climate change. In this presentation, he will focus on his recent critiques of geoengineering as an approach for alleviating climate warming
Wednesday, February 9 7:30 PM
Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center

An informal discussion for faculty, staff and students and Dr. Jamieson will take place in the ES Common Room, Adams Hall from 4:00-5:00.